


Old Secret

by free_cookiesx



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Families of Choice, i'll add more tags if needed, scott smajor is god, that's it that's the whole premise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:49:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27725062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/free_cookiesx/pseuds/free_cookiesx
Summary: "Why is Scott always the hero, man? Why can't it ever be me?" Tubbo groaned, passing a hand over his face. He grinned at Scott, who laughed and pat Tubbo's head between his antlers."Because when we ask you to do stuff for the greater good you say no!"
Relationships: none ya nasties, shippers please dni
Comments: 4
Kudos: 46





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title from "old secret" by james roach 
> 
> impulse demon and angel fic!! this is the first fic i've written in years where i haven't had an outline, so i'm really excited to see where this goes!! will i abandon it halfway through? will i finish it? who knows !! least of all me :)
> 
> have fun reading!! <3

Tubbo was running. 

His feet were pounding on the forest floor, his panting loud and heavy in his ears. He stumbled across a tree root and-

The world around him crumbled, throwing him into a dark abyss of night and pressure from all sides. There was no way he could have gotten out, he was suffocating, he was suffocating he was- 

Finally breathing again, in an icy paradise made of trees built with frost and love and snow. It was cold, so _cold_ , and he looked around, searching for a shelter in the tundra, only to panic when he finds none, and- 

He jolts into a crevice in a red wall, crimson stone built of fleshy spores surrounding him, he dug his hands into the mass around him, praying that the lava spilling from a crack in the corner doesn't come any closer, oh please please please no- 

He stands before a cliff, someone who he can only vaguely recognize standing in front of him, daring him, _taunting_ him into pushing them off the precipice, and his hands curled into fists and he reached out and- 

He falls into the ocean, pounding and unforgiving, as he attempted to swim to the surface in feeble desperation. He tried to force himself up, not caring about what it would mean for him, or his life, or his- 

He woke up for the final time in his bed, staring at the ceiling with sweat dripping down his face. He took a second to breathe, to steady himself from the ever-shifting nightmare he found himself trapped in. He clenched his hands in loose fists, reminding himself that he was safe here on Earth. 

With all the grace of a penguin he stood up, clutching his bedframe in an attempt to steady himself. He groggily made his way downstairs, pulling on a hoodie aged with time and wear. It smelled good, someone must be starting work late enough to make something- if they could really call it that. It wasn't really "work," he wasn't getting paid, but that was beside the point. 

Tubbo pulled himself into a chair at the island, gratefully taking a cup of something warm that Niki slid to him, and leaning into the hand that she placed on his hair. She scratched his head, going slower near his temples. 

"It's spring again, your antlers are going to come in soon," she hummed. "Let me know if you need me to give you some help." 

Tubbo rolled his eyes. "Alright, Miss- Miss I-Don't-Even-Have-To-Regrow-My-Horn. Unicorns aren't even real!" 

Niki laughed, patting his shoulder. "You're just jealous that you don't have them all year round. Do you want anything in your pancakes?" 

"Oh- blueberries, please." 

Niki nodded and made her way over to the fridge. "Eret had a long night," she said. She opened the container of blueberries and inspected them, checking for mold. "I don't have anything much today, so I woke up to make breakfast for when he wakes up." 

"What was he doing last night?" 

"He was working at a haunted house. I told him that no one was going to come in April, but you know him." 

Tubbo laughed, finishing the last of his coffee. "Yeah. I thought he would have been up all night streaming FNAF but that's almost better, instead of being scared by the monster he _is_ the monster!" 

"With his eyes he certainly is. You've got antlers, I've got a unicorn horn, and he's got glowing eyes. A horror family all around," Niki mused, pouring batter and dropping blueberries in. "Of course, we have to hide them, but it would be fun." 

Tubbo nodded and climbed onto the counter to get powdered sugar. "When do you think they'll wake up?" 

"Eret?" 

"Who else would I be talking about?" 

"I'm up now," came a groan from the doorway. There stood Eret, pinching the bridge of their nose and in pajamas made of every single ghastly color. "As much as I wish I wasn't." 

"You're the one who decided to exhaust yourself last night!" Tubbo scolded. Eret sat in the chair next to Tubbo with his head hanging. He gratefully accepted the coffee Niki gave him, raising it to his lips while Tubbo pat the sugar onto his pancakes. "Honestly, Eret, I thought better of you. A haunted house in April!" 

"Yeah, yeah," he groaned. "Make fun of me for partaking in a passion. It's alright." 

"Good morning to you, too, Eret," Niki hummed. She gave Eret a stack of pain pancakes and a jar of syrup. "Did it at least go well?" 

Eret nodded. "I only showed someone my eyes once, and they were being creepy to another person. Not in the fun way. There were some really nice people, as far as haunted houses go." 

They all sat in silence for a moment, eating their pancakes in relative peace until Niki's phone chimed. She checked her screen and sure enough there was a notification. She tapped on it and started texting someone, her pancakes on the verge of going cold. She looked up at Tubbo after a few seconds. "Ah- Tubbo, Scott messaged you a couple hours ago. He said he messaged you about a job?" 

Tubbo blinked. "I haven't checked any of my messages today, I hardly even just woke up." 

"You would think that after millenia upon millenia of being around us he would know that we demons aren't morning people," Eret hummed. "You'd better go answer him, though. If he's messaging Niki about it, it must be at least somewhat important." 

Tubbo scrunched his face up and shoveled the rest of his pancakes into his mouth at a terrifying speed. Niki rolled her eyes and grabbed his plate once he was done. "Go," she said. "I'll clean up." Eret gave him a thumbs up as he darted up the stairs, climbing into his chair and hummed as he started up his PC. He tapped a melody to a long-forgotten tune and double clicked Discord, sneering at the screen when it had automatically logged him out. 

Lo and behold, he had received a handful of DMs from one Scott Smajor. Honestly, Tubbo thought, if it wasn't for the fact that he was literally a god Tubbo would have taken it upon himself to destroy him long ago. 

**smajor** _Today at 6:45_ _  
_ good morning tubbo! :)   
don't forget to follow up on the documents i sent you about early mesopotamia and their gods   
and i swear to myself, tubbo, if you don't talk to tommy about him trying to amass a huge amount of religious followers im going to smite you _so hard_ _  
_ we can't have another grape kool-aid cult on our hands, you know how the last one worked out

 **Tubbo** _Today at 8:34_ _  
_scott wgy do you always wake up so early

 **smajor** _Today at 8:36_ _  
_im a god, tubbo, i don't need to sleep

 **Tubbo** _Today at 8:37_ _  
_youre a prick thats what you are >:( 

**smajor** _Today at 8:37_ _  
_sure, tell that to your existence <3

 **Tubbo** _Today at 8:38_ _  
_scott im going to makd sure you never see your friends again

 **smajor** _Today at 8:40_ _  
_lets not go that far, tubbo, we both know you won't waste my time that way. im a very busy man, i have been for centuries.  
just try and keep an eye out for anything that could have been one of us in disguise  
we need to see if anyone we know was meddling with more important historical events, because if it was then we need to take the proper precautions to protecting them if we get found out   
all i know is that there was something around the time mesopotamia was founded, but i don't know who did it or where it was, so i have a couple people working on various places 

**Tubbo** _Today at 8:41_ _  
_ why must you always be so formal and shit, scott

 **smajor** _Today at 8:42_ _  
_ im just cool like that   
now get to work   
if you start now, you'll have time to stream tonight

 **Tubbo** _Today at 8:42_ _  
_ o7

Tubbo clicked on one of the documents Scott had linked him to, scans of a series of runes written in some ancient language he only vaguely remembered learning. He tried to scan his memory for residual knowledge, but all he came up with was that time that he snuck into a party with Tommy. He groaned and dropped his head into his hands, making a mental note to ask Eret or Niki if they could help him with a translation. 

Gods, this was going to be a long day. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "So these are not Sumerian. For sure," Tubbo said, chewing on a pen. "Or any typical cuneiform script, for that matter."  
> "Yeah, I helped create that one. I know what it looks like," Eret said nonchalantly.  
> "No you didn't."   
> "I mean- I was there in the room!"   
> "Sure, Eret." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you were here before: welcome back! definitely do Not expect updates to be this fast Ever Again

Sometimes Tubbo forgot how  _ boring _ research could be. 

There was the occasional time where he remembered something, or all the sources fell into place, but for the most part research was a long and tedious project that he loathed to do. Normally he was on the investigation front, talking to people who might know things and/or keeping tabs on people important to their case. He  _ hated  _ looking at documents, especially when they concerned something as  _ stupid _ as ancient runes in a language no one knew anything about or cared for anymore. 

He was looking into various museum aids, people who were professionals in their job. So far, aside from an incident involving an earthquake, he couldn't find anything incriminating of any god, especially anyone he  _ knew _ . He ran a hand through his hair, combing it while he looked for anyone who looked like an immortal or at  _ least  _ looked like they knew what they were doing. He winced when he brushed against one of his temples, looking in the mirror next to him. 

His scalp was getting red, and it hurt to touch it. If Tubbo were any normal teenager, he could have chalked it up to something like acne. However, because he was a demon who happened to have deer horns, he didn't think it was likely. He groaned and leaned back in his gamer chair, wracking his brain to see if anything, anything at  _ all _ would be able to help. 

Reluctantly he got up and walked to the kitchen in hopes that he would be able to find a clean cup. He scoured the terrain and was pleased when he found a small glass up to fill with water. As he took his little break he looked at the clock. He'd been working for four hours already? Gods, maybe he  _ did  _ need help with this. 

He poked his head into Eret's room, seeing that he was sitting at his desk and looking at some sort of video feed. He had earbuds in, so he probably wouldn't be able to hear Tubbo, but Tubbo came in and leaned over his shoulder anyways. He ignored Eret's jump and pointed at a woman onscreen. "Who's this?" 

Eret rolled his eyes. "Ignore her. She's supposed to be the representative of a Goddess, but she's not important to our investigation. I'm only watching this because I know I have to check  _ every corner _ or else Scott will get mad." 

"Not because she's pretty?"

"I- Tubbo!"

Tubbo laughed and Eret pulled the earbuds out of his ears. "What did you need, Tubbo? Aren't you supposed to be looking over uh..." 

"Ancient Mesopotamia. It's mostly maps, actually, but there's these runes..." 

"Weren't you there when they were developing their language?"

Tubbo puffed in indignation. "Well- yeah! But I wasn't paying  _ attention _ !"

It was Eret's turn to laugh and he minimized the video. "Let me take a look at the document," he said."I'll probably be able to give you a rough translation. If not-" 

"Techno will know the answer," Tubbo chorused. "I have no idea how he van remember anything, it all turns to mush, man." 

Eret nodded. "It does at that, Tubbo. Now go back upstairs, I've got the rest of a video to watch." 

"Sure, watch your pretty lady video," Tubbo said, walking towards the door. His smirk turned into a grin at Eret's sputtering, and he looked up the stairs and at his doorway. "Back to the cave," he groaned. 

He trudged back up the stairs and took care to make as little noise as possible so not to disturb Niki. She was the only one out of all of them who wasn't working on the project, giving her leniency to do a six hour stream. And, as far as the general public knew, they didn't live together. He pressed his ear against her door to listen in, but she was breathless with laughter. She was probably on a call with someone, then.

Tubbo's eyes felt weary as he sunk back into his chair, the pictures on his screen swimming in his head. There was an incoming call from Eret and Tubbo clicked on it and immediately groaned for comedic effect. Eret laughed, and together they got to work deciphering the runes, trying to create a key for themselves in English.

"So these are  _ not _ Sumerian. For sure," Tubbo said, chewing on a pen. "Or any typical cuneiform script, for that matter. That's interesting, I would have thought, you know, since we're looking into the middle east it would be one of them." 

"Yeah, I helped create that one. I know what it looks like," Eret said nonchalantly. "They needed a new method of writing so desperately." 

"No you didn't." 

"I mean- I was there in the room!" 

"Sure, Eret." 

"I was!" 

"Whatever. But do you think that it may be some sort of other language that just happened to make its way over there?"

"Maybe? But I don't know what it would be doing there and I still don't know what language it's in." 

They continued to theorize until finally Eret leaned back in his seat. "We should get Techno into the call, he'd know what to do." 

"You're probably right. Do you want to message him or shall I?" 

"I'll get it." 

There were some clicks from Eret, and Techno's name lit up in Scott's supernatural server. 

**Eret** _Today at 1:24_ _  
__@Technoblade_ do you think you could get in the call? tubbo and i are having a few problems with some runes 

**Tubbo** _ Today at 1:24 _ _  
_ please

**Technoblade** _ Today at 1:25 _ _  
_ I'm a busy man, but I'm sure I can spare some time for you.   
Not now though, I'm still waking up

**Tubbo** _Today at 1:26_ _  
_ what???? 

**Technoblade** _ Today at 1:26 _ _  
_ You're hours ahead of me, Tubbo. 

**Eret** _ Today at 1:27 _ _  
_ just join the call when you're ready :)

"So now what?" 

"We wait for Techno to join the call," Eret hummed. "We can't get any further on our own, so we wait for someone who knows more than we do about it." 

Tubbo goraned. "And Scott's doing his own thing so  _ he _ can't help us either." 

"Yeah. But he's the one who created the discord server, so he'll be able to see that we asked for Techno's help."

"What was he doing, did he tell you?" Tubbo asked, taking another sip of his water. "He didn't mention it to me." 

"Uh... I think he was looking into some civilizations in Ukraine." 

"So he probably has some issues of his own, then." 

"Yeah. I'm going to go get something to eat, sit there in case Techno joins." 

Tubbo heard the telltale sound of a chair being pushed back and then he was alone, left to either try and keep deciphering or waste time until someone talked to him. He chose the latter, humming as he scrolled through the channels in the Discord. He went about clearing his notifications and looking at a few of his chats. Niki was talking to Wilbur about birds and their similarities to angel wings, Eret and Techno were talking about crowns through the 1500's, and Scott was telling Tommy and Shubble about various minecraft cat mods. What was that doing there? This server was mainly for supernatural stuff. Tubbo shrugged and marked all as read in order to avoid scrolling down on that massive conversation. 

He watched an episode or two of a cartoon and no one had come back yet, so he decided to glance at Niki's stream for a few minutes. She was playing minecraft hardcore, but it looked like she was about to change the subject of the stream. It looked like her guest had something come up. She ran an ad, and Tubbo heard her lean back in her chair and sigh. 

**Tubbo** _ Today at 2:02 _ _  
_ niki are you doing alright

**nihachu** _ Today at 2:02 _ _  
_ i'm doing fine tubbo! just tired   
i might end stream early   
do you need help with something? 

**Tubbo** _Today at 2:03_ _  
_ yeah bu t it can wait!! im getting techno to help me :)

Tubbo heard her go back into her streamer mode once she realized the first wave of ad-watchers were about to come back, and he stopped messaging her. He kept watching her for a second but then he heard the chime of someone entering a discord call. 

"So what did you need from me?" Techno asked, voice low and hoarse. "A translation or something?" 

"Yeah, actually, we need to know if you recognize these runes." Tubbo linked the document in the chat, and Techno took a second before responding. "I know them, sort of. They're familiar. What are you doing with these?" 

"Scott thinks they might be connected to the incident about 6,000 years ago? They were found in Ancient Mesopotamia so I've been investigating some stuff from around there." 

"These- okay." Techno took a deep breath. "These aren't from any ancient race of humans, they're from older demigods who wanted a way to make themselves feel special, pretty much. Out of everyone you know, only... me, Phil, Scott, and maybe Wilbur were there when these were created. It's a very old language, I only remember the basic ones." 

"Oh. So it might have something to do with the incident?" 

"No, it  _ definitely  _ has something to do with the incident. You don't see Galactic anywhere except for when the gods are involved." 

"S- so what does it say, then?" 

Techno hummed. "This first one looks like it says something like... 'Your five something are up,' but I have no idea what it's referring to. I could ask for Phil to translate, but it might take a couple days for him to respond. He's dealing with that issue with the scientists." 

"Yeah, if you could? Scott might not be happy with that but it's all I can think of." 

"I'll talk to him. If you're on a schedule, then Phil might not be the best person to help you with this. Scott could help, too." 

"Thanks, Techno," Tubbo said. "Now that that's done I can stream, but I think I'm just going to mess around on Twitter or something." 

"That's fair. Wait- wasn't Eret supposed to be here, too?" 

"Oh, I'll go check on him. He said he was going to grab something to eat, but I don't know what's taking him so long." 

Tubbo stood up and slid down the stairs, softly calling Eret's name as he searched for him. He walked into the kitchen to find no Eret and a container of goldfish open and spilled on the ground. Tubbo's heart sank as he noticed the crushed goldfish on the tile, and he glanced around to see what might have happened. 

His eyes landed on their large sliding glass door, and he gasped when he saw the broken pieces of it on the floor. Next to it was a stone slab, the same runes neatly etched into it. He ran over, crouching near the slab, but decided against touching it in favour of stepping away and running into Eret's room to continue the call with Techno. 

"Uh, Techno?"

"Yeah?" 

"We- uh. We might need those translations a little earlier." 

**Author's Note:**

> if this breaks anyone's boundaries, please let me know and i'll take necessary measures to make everyone feel comfortable <3
> 
> if you liked this, please check out some of my other works!! most of them are longer one-shots, and i worked really hard on them so if you could take a look it would mean the world to me :)


End file.
